Big Lead Sports Bar

9/21/2009

NCAA TOURNAMENT COMING BACK TO THE BURGH

For the first time since 2002, the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament will be coming to the Steel City. Today, Duquesne University announced that they will host NCAA first and second round men's basketball tournament games March 15 and 17, 2012, at the new home of the Penguins, the Consol Energy Center. See, the new arena's already paying dividends beyond hockey.

The men's tourney has been played in the city twice before. In 1997, the city witnessed a 15-seed (Coppin State) beating a 2-seed (South Carolina) before bowing out in round two to 10th seeded Texas.

In 2002, the hometown Pitt Panthers played two games before the home fans, beating 14-seed Central Connecticut State and 6th-seeded Cal. Eventually, the Panthers would be upset by Kent State, which dressed a guy who we would later come to know as San Diego Chargers tight end Antonio Gates.

2 comments:

Still one of my fondest memories of me and my dad is when I was in like 2nd or 3rd grade, and the tourney was at the Civic Arena. He got tickets and he came to pull me out of school. He told the secretary in the principal's office that I had a doctor's appointment and had to leave early that day. The secretary glared at him, sort of rolled her eyes, and then signed a form for him to sign to get me out of school. Before she did, though, she motioned to the other half of the principal's office, and my dad and I peeked our heads around and there were about 8 other dads with their sons pulling them out of school for "doctor appointments", when everyone and their mother (or, I guess in this case, father) knew we were just heading to the Igloo to watch USC get knocked off by Coppin State and their coach named Fang. Such a great sporting event...